Despite steady progress over the past few years, electric cars still make up only a very small percentage of the tens of millions of new cars sold globally every year.
Projected electric-car sales by 2040 (Image: Bloomberg New Energy Finance)
And while that won’t change immediately, energy-industry analysts believe a surge in electric-car sales could be just around the corner.
Electric cars and plug-in hybrids could come to represent 35 percent of new light-duty vehicle sales by 2040, according to a recent report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
They will achieve that through a major increase in sales beginning in the 2020s, analysts say, driven primarily by steady decreases in the cost of lithium-ion battery cells.
By 2040, they expect electric-car sales to hit 41 million units, around 90 times the number sold in 2015.
Electric cars could also represent about a quarter of the vehicles on world roads by that date, according to Bloomberg.
Read more: Green Car Reports